Back in the day before Markos Moulitsas found fame and fortune by getting dozens of insightful and gifted writers to contribute freely to his site, the Daily Kos was a source of insightful commentary and hard investigative journalism.

Always mindful of his ambition to get to the top of the heap in the blogosphere, Markos enforced a policy for years that banned any contributor who wrote crazy “tin-foil” diaries that did things like question the findings of the 9-11 commission or suggest fraud in the 2004 elections.

Now that Markos has bought himself a new home and made himself a player on the talking heads circuit, things have begun to change. Over the last two years, many of the site’s original contributors drifted away only to be replaced by a younger and more aggressive crowd for whom name-calling and flaming have replaced research and reason.

I can only assume that Sen. Clinton must have snubbed Markos or that Sen. Obama offered to make him Secretary of the Internet because those same hare-brained, fact free speculations that were once condemned by Markos have come to dominate the site.

The editorial policy of the site now seems to be that as long as a diary attacks Sen. Clinton no speculation is too outrageous or obsence.

Todays winnner (on their recommended list no less) is an attack on Sen. Clinton for making Sen. Obama “blacker” in her ad footage.

Thank you, Markos, for doing everything you could to lower the tone is this primary season. What a pity. Should Sen. Obama now lose the nomination you will have squandered your credibility by turning your site into his attack dog. Who knows? You might just sink back to the obscurity from which you came. Hope you got a good deal on the house.

To see the horrific ends to which that scheming bitch Hillary Clinton will go to defeat the Messianic Sen. Obama just visit Daily Kos.

See the diary in question here